


Weight of Living

by irltooru



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort, I'M SERIOUS IF YOU'RE EASILY TRIGGERED PLEASE DO NOT READ, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Panic Attacks, TRIGGER WARNING OK, Triggers, implied/referenced eating disorder, mainly suga being sad and some daisuga to make it better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 15:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6334327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irltooru/pseuds/irltooru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suga has cycled through plenty of coping mechanisms until he's spent. He wants control over his life, but he can't find any. He's lost and alone, but Daichi finds him despite everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weight of Living

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't read the tags yet, there's a massive trigger warning so be prepared
> 
> also this is completely unedited so if you find any mistakes, please let me know. Thanks.

Suga doesn’t know why he was doing what he was doing, because he loses his train of thought as he rocks back and forth on his knees, silent screams tearing themselves from his throat. He clutches his head in his hands, anguished fingers pulling at hair and becoming sticky with sweat. He tucks his feet more firmly and curls in on himself, until his head is almost touching the carpeted floor and he could feel the cold caress of his tears sliding onto the ground between his eyebrows. He keened silently, mouth open in a gasp as he shuddered, breathing erratic and ragged.

He doesn’t specifically know what brought this on. Maybe it was the assignment due in two days, the insensitive comment made by a classmate, the few sets he messed up on during volleyball practice, and the feelings he had for a specific member of the team, or maybe it’s simply _all of the above._ He’s fine when these little things happen on their own, and he’s able to swallow the little twinge of fear, hurt, or regret in the moment, keeping himself under tight control and not letting it get to him.

People have always praised him, praised his ability to have such a reign over his emotions, to take an offense so impersonally and for always being quick to forgive transgressions. People think that it doesn’t seem to take a toll on Suga, and even Suga himself believes that it doesn’t. So he just grins and bears it: the weights that are added onto him pound by pound.

Until that weight becomes unbearable and he collapses. He doesn’t know he’s collapsed, because he keeps on telling himself that he’s _strong, and that he can build himself up again and he doesn’t need anyone else to do it for him._ He’s the setter, the control tower, and he needs to be tough. He can handle this, he can handle anything tossed at him with insensitivity.

At least that’s what he told himself. He thought he was okay now, already a weathered veteran in the army against the unjust aspects of everyday life. He thought he could deal with life completely unlike how he used to deal with it.

A year ago, he had different coping mechanisms. When the ache in his heart threatened to reach down into the pit of his stomach, up his throat, and ooze out of his pores, he would have a way to make it better. The agonizing, awful fullness of his emotions became too much for him to bear so he’d take it out himself. He’d let the dangerous silver of his blades, unscrewed meticulously from the plastic frames of pencil sharpeners lick his thighs; he’d allow his own hands to press, to split his skin with swift, deep movements that let all of the anger, frustration, wretchedness, _badness_ cascade from himself with a blaze of crimson. He’d let himself sag against the cold, hostile tiles of his bathroom floor until the red dries on the clammy skin of his legs and his veins are empty.

At least that’s what he used to do. He never cut on his arms because volleyball was more important to him than this. And it took him a few more months to stop altogether and see a therapist because it got so bad, he had to skip a few practices. It got so bad that he stopped wearing volleyball shorts for a while because the gashes the blades left became deeper and deeper until his parents saw a scarlet stain spreading out from beneath the bathroom door where the tiles and the carpet of the hallway met. The white faces of his teammates seemed to be paler than the white of his bandages as they had stared in disbelief and shock at him. He’d smiled apologetically, a little sad, as he explained everything while reclining in his sterile hospital bed, stitched up. The pain in his heart was greater than the pain in his legs.

So that’s why he stopped cutting. He couldn’t flush the terrible image of his terrified teammates out of his messed-up head, so he vowed to never see that again.

But life kept going, as did the things that triggered him. He didn’t know what to do with it at first, because his dull blades had lost their appeal and his wounds were done healing, scabbing, and scarring so he decided to try a different approach, to inspire control.

So Suga stopped eating. _He thought it wouldn’t hurt, to lose a few pounds. It’ll give him the control he craves so badly and he’ll look good, too._

At least, that was the ideal situation. It worked up until the point where he ironically lost control, obsessively weighing himself on a killer-accurate digital scale every single damned morning, after he’d peed everything out and stripped himself clean of every piece of clothing. It worked up until the point he started counting his ribs, stroking the jutting bones of his hips and wondering if he deserved one, half, or no apple at all that day. It worked up to the point where he’d collapsed in the middle of practice, ashen-faced, and was rushed to the hospital, again.

His parents had cried before. He’d hear his mother sobbing every night about how she didn’t see him eat a single thing that day. He knows and recognizes the flat line his dad’s lips set themselves into as his eyes glisten every time Suga tells a lie, an excuse to get out of a meal. He’d been insensitive to his parents’ sadness every time because he was consumed by a vast amount of simultaneous relief and anxiety.

But he really feels it now as his fragile head is resting on a hospital pillow, eyes forced shut because he was supposed to be unconscious but he isn’t because he doesn’t want to wake up and face reality.

But when he does, he decides it’s time to stop killing himself slowly, and lets his parents take him to therapy again. He lets the dietician lecture him on a healthy diet and he lets the bloodwork needles push into his spent veins again and again. He lets the doctor guide him onto a scale but every time he does, he tips his head back to look at the ceiling and doesn’t look down again until the small _beep_ reaches his ears and he knows it’s safe when the doctor types the numbers into the computer. He’s done that so many times now, he could probably mimic that _beep_ , pitch accurate (it’s a b flat).

And he slowly lets that part of his life go, filling his deprived body with food and vitamins and supplements, returning to volleyball so cheerfully, it erased any worry his teammates had.

But what about now? He’d been fine for a while, the tides had receded and he was no longer drowning, but why did he feel like the water was cascading back over him?

Why was he kneeling, hunched over on the filthy carpet, tears pouring from his eyes like an ocean, screaming and screaming but not making a sound? Why was every single muscle in his body rigid and stiff as the air choked out of his lungs?

 _Save me,_ Suga tried to shout. _Please. Someone. Anyone._

He bites into his lip in an attempt to halt the silent, airy screams, and gasps in pain as he tastes something metallic.

_Oh please please please I’m dying I’m dying I am DYING oh someone save me I am so lonely I am dying I need help help help HELP ME PLEASE._

The pounding of blood in his ears was too loud and he almost misses the harsh sound of the doorbell in his agonized, foggy mind. He panics as he hears his mother unlatch the door and excitedly greet someone. Suga presses his face into the carpet, muffling sobs as he hears the name.

“Good evening, Daichi-kun! Are you looking for Suga?”

_No, no, no._

“Yeah! I told him that I’d be over to watch the recording of a volleyball match with him.”

 _Oh, shit._ Suga had forgotten. There is no way he’d let Daichi see him like this, pathetically curled up on the ground, snot dripping out of his red nose and limbs shaking from being clenched for so long. His mind blanks when his mother calls for him, and he finds it impossible to move, fear anchoring his body in the same pathetic position that he’d been in for the past half hour.

Suga’s mother calls out again, and he is too afraid to open his mouth to respond, knowing his tired throat will betray him. Half of him wants Daichi to just _leave,_ to get out of the house so he wouldn’t need to see Suga like this. The other half desperately wants Daichi’s hands stroking his back comfortingly, hugging him close and then maybe Suga will finally feel _warm and safe and loved._

“I think Suga’s just upstairs, go ahead and get him.”

Panic rises again when Suga hears Daichi’s familiar socked footsteps thump up the stairs. His ear registers the sound of feet grazing on carpet, coming closer and closer until three loud knocks shatter the almost-silence. Suga bares his teeth, the sound of knuckle on wood more piercing than he’d expected. “Suga?”

Suga rolls his bloodied bottom lip between his teeth, grimacing at the pain. He clenches his eyes shut, shoving his face harder into the carpet, damp from his tears.

“Suga?” Daichi calls again, the concern evident. He used this same voice kneeling beside the hospital bed. He used this same voice when asking Suga if he was _absolutely sure_ that he could return to practice after he was released from the hospital. Suga almost cries, and almost opens his mouth to respond, but is interrupted by the dreaded grating of the doorknob turning.

“I’m coming in, Suga.”

Suga doesn’t dare move when Daichi enters the room.

Suga’s fingers are still tangled in his own hair and he knows they must be shaking because his arms are trembling.

He feels the floorboards shift underneath him, and judging by the sound and movements, he knows that Daichi has knelt down beside him.

He chokes a little bit when Daichi places a warm hand on his backside, rubbing it comfortingly.

“Oh, Suga.” Daichi’s voice breaks a little and so does Suga, fresh tears oozing from his puffy eyes at the sound of his voice. He can’t stop the little sobs that escape from his wretched mouth, and Daichi’s heart wrenches.

“I’m here,” Daichi murmurs, gently guiding Suga’s clammy, trembling fingers away from his sweat-soaked hair. “You’re not alone, Suga. I’m here.”

_Not alone. I’m not alone. You’re here._

Suga inhales deeply, willing his tears under control. He takes breath after breath, feeling his tense lungs expand and relax. He feels a hand slipping under his chest, gently coaxing him up from his curled-up position. He groans as he feels his tense muscles uncoil and his joints pop, the bright lights of his room making him dizzy as he opens his clenched eyes, red and puffy with tears. The air hits his sticky face, slick with tears and snot.

_I am a mess, don’t look at me, don’t look at me._

Ignoring the grossness of Suga’s pale, dirty face marked with dimples from the imprint of the carpet, Daichi gathers a limp Suga into his strong arms, nestling his face into his chest. Suga’s spent muscles give out under Daichi’s warm and firm embrace. He inhales and exhales into his chest, breathing in the scent of fabric softener and Daichi. He feels warm fingers knead into his scalp comfortingly and he starts sobbing into Daichi’s shirt, staining it with fresh tears, snot, and the residue blood from his mouth. His tears are more of relief than of fear and anxiety, and Suga is grateful that Daichi is holding him. Daichi continues to stroke his hair, whispering and cooing into Suga’s ear.

“I’m here, Suga. I’m here and you don’t need to worry.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> First of all, yes, the title is a Bastille song. If you noticed, good job because I love Bastille a lot haha.  
> This fic was pretty easy to write because 90% of it has been experienced firsthand by yours truly. It was just a matter of inserting Suga and Daichi into it, and adding some other stuff.  
> Sorry there isn't a lot of fluff and stuff, I'm bad at writing things like that because I am a cold-hearted person and the only thing I'm good at writing is depressing crap I am so sorry


End file.
